Istana Nelayan @ Serpong , Indonesia

Was in Jakartafor a short trip, main purpose was to participate in a training seminar. Lunch was served in a paper cakebox

And voila , the contents…rice, stewed chicken and hardboil egg, I am not sure what this was-but I think must be the skin of the moomoo cooked in curry, stirfried vegetable and chili sauce. This was pretty good, I finished everything !!For dinner our host took us to Istana Nelayan ( translated to mean – Fisherman’s Palace) . The appetizers were interesting, there were 3 in all, and you get your individual servings. These include – grilled fishpaste wrapped in banana leaves- this was nice. Deep fried tou pok ( bean curd)- the sauce was a bit too hot for my tolerance level. Cakes made with rice flour, which you dip into palm sugar before eating- I like this, it reminded me of some biscuits/kuih I had somewhere but my memory failed me, what ? where ?

The sauces

The purpose this restaurant was chosen was because Pak Host would like to get us to sing. There were 4 of us, Pak T was very quick to say- I can’t sing . This seemed like the best opportunity to get out of singing and my motto for the night was – I will sing after Pak T sing. The way the karaoke work is, you tell the DJ over the PA what is your selection and in a while, your selected song will be played on the overhead TV and you are good to go.. Pak Host did a good rendition of an Indonesian song. I remember that there were at least 4 books to select from – English songs ( lagu barat, as shown below ), Indonesians ( I think there were 2 of this) and Chinese songs. I could hear the people in the neighbouring room singing mandarin songs.French beans with minced meat – there were some nasty pieces of chili padi in this and I had to be really careful- the dish was rather nice – the minced meat was very tastyPrawns in mayo – the prawns were peeled, deep fried, coated with mayo and sprinkled with sesame- prawns were fresh and fleshy. Can do lah

Steamed fish – I didn’t catch what fish this was but the fish didn’t taste that fresh and slightly overcooked. A pity that the sauce lack that Umppp too..this was average

Cuttlefish in black sauce – the dish came with lotsa onions, sadly the cuttlefish was a bit tough and needed quite a bit of jaw work, the sauce didn’t work very well to bring out the dish.

Overall, an average meal..and even after much coaxing . Pak T still refused to sing, which meant that I was or maybe more accurately- they were , saved from hearing me yodellediwuuuuu…yodelellediwahahaaha…